Why start treatment?

Apr 13, 2000

A couple of questions if you don't mind. Firstly why start treating people with drugs (HAART?) early when at the time people wouldn't have symptoms as such. It seems a lot of people ask questions on here about illness which is actually attributed to the drug usage? Why not just start them at year 10 say?

What is the current outlook for people who say find they are HIV+ after 10 years without knowing (started getting ill). If they then started on the drugs what sort of length of outlook would they then have (I realize you cant be specific just averages etc.) Thanks in advance.

Response from Dr. Henry

Good general questions which are really outside of the scope of this forum related to symptoms of HIV or related to side effects of treatment. For a general discussion of my view of how to approach HIV therapy please look at the Feb 15, 2000 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine wherein I argue for a more conservative and individualized long-term approach to therapy.
Keith Henry, M.D.

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